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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Indian Horse, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Tradition
Cultural Genocide
Abuse and Trauma
Racism and Prejudice
Transcendence
Summary
Analysis
Saul’s classmates die of many diseases during their time in school. He witnesses children commit suicide by cutting their wrists and by drowning themselves. The experience is so horrifying that Saul only survives by isolating himself from others and doing his best to become “void of feeling.” He makes himself a promise: to never let the nuns and priests see him cry.
Although Saul is surrounded by misery, he makes a promise to himself to remain proud and strong, perhaps sensing that, on some level, the school is intended to break him down and make him weak, servile, and without a sense of identity.
Themes
